Living in Grace and Community

I'm back!  I took a nice little break to rest and also have a fun getaway with my husband to celebrate an anniversary milestone.  It was heaven, and so restful and healing in so many ways.

My topic today is a bit different than my original intention for this blog.  However, a common theme keeps arising and my heart  has been pulled to write a bit of my thoughts on this.  Some of my thoughts in this post are a little all over the place, but they are all woven from a common thread.  I truly believe that being in community and building connection and offering support and encouragement to others is probably, in all honesty, a lot more healthy than the food you put in your mouth.  What we feed our souls and the hearts of those around us matters most.

Community in our lives is so important for so many reasons.  As Christians, we are called to live in community with others -  to help uplift, encourage, and support each other in our daily walks.  When you don't have community and connection with other families in your lives, there is a bit of isolation that takes place. Finding a village and network of friends with similar morals, values, and priorities really provides that "village" that the saying refers to when raising kids, especially.  It truly does take a village to raise our kids, and even more so in today's world.

When our son was very sick in his early years, I let myself become very isolated and I didn't really let many people into that world.  It was very hard for me to watch other people's healthy children running around, thriving, and having fun while our child was tired, sick and, therefore, sad a lot.  It made the pain even more real.  That isolation led to a very dark time in my life, from which I've thankfully emerged.  However, having walked through that time, I have learned how important it is to let people in and live in community with others. Sometimes, the people that can offer the most support and encouragement are really those people that haven't walked your road, but they want to try to understand it and be there for you.  They ask to walk by your side, pray for you, and help you where they can.  Thankfully, friends like this came along beside me and helped guide me back into community when we first moved to Texas.

Friends, if you believe in God and that he has designed us for community, then you also should believe that there is an enemy that comes to steal, kill, and destroy that community.  If you can be hurt within your community, maybe you will be tempted to leave it.  To isolate.  Maybe you won't allow yourself to get too close to people anymore.  You'll have fun, be friendly, etc., but you won't let them in any longer to those tender parts.  You'll keep those places hidden.

I have had so many friends recently come to me discouraged by the words, actions, and perceptions of others within our community, that it prompted me to really think about this topic and want to write about it.   One friend was hurt that a certain group of people talk badly about her family and a single situation that occurred, much of which was exaggerated.  Another, is discouraged that their son is having behavior problems, and they feel alone and discouraged because community members are judging their parenting techniques, labeling their child as "bad", and gossiping to each other about him.  

If you know me, you know I love me some science.  There is actually a Harvard study that shows that as humans it usually takes FIVE positive interpersonal comments/interactions to cancel out just ONE negative comment/interaction.  Let that sink in for a minute.

I've been discouraged lately too, I will admit.  I've shared here that sports have not come easily to my son.  He has worked tremendously hard to be where he is and he IS having great success now.   Not too long ago, our son had his personal best game and in our excitement we shared as much.  A few days later, Mason had an experience where a friend at school came to him and said that his family had looked into it and were diminishing the success he'd had.

Ouch.  

Nothing destroys community more than two things:  comparing yourself, your spouse, your kids, and your wealth and success to that of others.  The other is competition and not being happy for someone in their success, and tearing them down in order to help yourself walk a little bit taller.  Add to that mess, allowing ourselves to marinate in what other people think of us and how they treat us is also not only a slippery slope, but adds another hole in an already sinking boat of connection to others.

I had many thoughts immediately come to the surface with this particular hurt.  Who takes the time to even do this sort of thing and did it make them feel better about themselves?  I cannot even fathom this.

I felt the sadness and hurt just continue flooding over me as a mama bear.  The enemy had hit me square in the pink underbelly, one of those tender places.  So, out of that hurt, I started firing out questions to my son, "You know you had that certain amount of tackles!  Your coaches told you!    They counted them!  Assisted tackles where you and another person both bring someone down counts as that!  What did you say to him?  Did you tell him that?  Did you ask him why he would say that?"  My son looked me square in the eye and calmly said, "Mom, when he first said it to me, I felt completely deflated.  I felt the way I used to feel when I wasn't having this kind of success, for just a few seconds.  But, then I realized that comment said a lot more about him than it did about me.  I know who I am now and I don't have anything to prove to anyone anymore.  I have already proven it to myself and that's all that matters."  (NOW....lest you think for one second that I would even dare take arrogant responsibility for this mature and healthy response from my son, let me just share that he has been known to sit at the dinner table eating salad with his fingers, all while one leg is bent upward on his chair, and freely belching.  Ahem.  Enter the need for Cotillion.  He also bragged to me not so terribly long ago that he hadn't used soap in the shower for weeks.  He just rinses the dirt off.  I have no words.  It is clear why God gave us one child.  We are doing a superior job here in the parenting department, clearly.)

Wow.  So many times God uses simple things, like words from our kiddos, to drive home truth that our parent hearts truly need to hear and be reminded of.  I began to ponder why this hurt me so badly.  Why this family could not just simply be happy for my son - its no secret the hard road we'd traveled - we've been honest and vocal about it.  I settled in and got nice and comfy with my hurt and had a good little pity party for myself.  When, I couldn't make sense of it, I decided to call it a day, and pray over the situation.  One thing that I have found over the years is that if you pray over a conflict or situation and ask God to soften your heart to what you truly need to hear, then He always will.

A day or two later, my husband and I left for vacation and I was having some quiet time in the morning out on our patio with my coffee.  The verse of the day in my devotional was "Come to me all who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest."  I had felt so mentally worn down and tired leading up to this trip.  I'd confided in a friend that my busy, racing mind had created a feeling of being so high strung, that it was beginning to feel like the norm, and I had to put an end to that.  I felt the Lord telling me to shut my devotional, close my eyes and just listen to what He was about to tell me.

In that time, I thought about the tiredness, the burdens I had been carrying, and then that family and football situation that had really caused a hurt within my already tired heart.  That hurt may sound trivial to some, but for someone worn down, tired, and burdened, it was the icing on the big fat cake of discouragement.   For a moment, I came back to that pity party I'd had a few days prior.  Then, just as I had prayed for, the Lord began to soften my heart.  He showed me where the ugly had lied within me.  Had I competed with others and demeaned the good things happening in their lives?  No, I hadn't.  Although,  I also hate competition.  It's not my particular struggle, so that wasn't really a fair assessment.  However, was I guilty of other things that harmed connection in community maybe just the same?  Maybe, for me that looks more like the one extra girlfriend that I had vented to about a situation that I really didn't need to vent about, because at that point it was just gossip.  Maybe it was the smug feeling I had when "karma" hit someone that had been ugly or arrogant to me.  Maybe, just maybe, it was the weary friend that I had spewed my current hurts and frustrations in my life to in a vent, without even stopping to see that her heart couldn't handle any more negativity or one more thing to think about at that moment.  I had missed connection in that selfish moment of rant with her.  What if something I had said out of hurt in my participation in gossip had traveled back to the wrong person and hurt someone?   This is the thing.  Words hurt.  The words we choose either build people up, or they tear them down.  So, we have to choose them carefully.  Even in private.  Little ears listen and pick up on these things.  Negative words set tones.  We can choose what kinds of discussions go on in our homes and what we are teaching our children about kindness, support, encouragement, understanding, and connection.  I suddenly felt saddened by how badly the enemy truly wants to rob us of friendship, connection, and love in community with others.  If we can fall out of that community, then we will isolate ourselves a bit, or maybe become bitter and resentful.  Either way, a foothold is then created for disconnection, distance in relationships, misunderstanding, and we do not show love or kindness.  The cycle of hurting people hurt others continues.

This is where grace comes in, sweet friends.  However, we can't want grace for ourselves, and justice for everyone else.  It doesn't work that way.  

Does this mean we let people walk all over us, or that we can't sit down with a close friend and talk about the best way to handle conflict or ask their take?  Heavens, no.  However, there is always a reason that someone will be behave hurtfully, and it is usually because they are hurting.  So, give them grace.  Be gentle with them.   This doesn't mean we're a doormat.  It just means that we need to stop.  We have, for the love, got to stop comparing and competing, it's just the cloak of insecurity.  If we are comparing and competing, then we are not building others up.  Or ourselves for that matter, if we're really honest.  We have to stop caring what other people think of us or do to us and being easily offended.  We have to avoid the gossip train and the judgement of other people.  We need to stop feeling superior to others because they struggle in a different way or sin differently than we do.  We all struggle in some way.  Every single one of us.  We have to listen to the 11-year old boy who has learned that we have nothing to prove and where our identity should lie.  We have a choice on who we surround ourselves with, what we allow in our homes, what we allow to roll off of our tongues, what we allow to enter our minds, and how we let the actions, words, and disappointments from other people affect us.  We don't need to have the last word, or make sure the wrongs against us are made right, or the record is set straight.  We just need to give grace.  Be kind.  Be happy for other people's success.  Walk a mile in someone's shoes before judging them.  Don't keep the ball rolling by allowing our hurts to cause us to think, and then behave negatively out of that hurt.  Put those negative feelings in their place.  Get rid of that mess.

Today, choose connection and understanding over anything else.  Take a deep breath and ask yourself if your feelings, words, and actions are driving you toward connecting, seeking to understand, and building up, or if they need to be put to rest.  Walk beside others.  Lift them up, encourage them, be happy for them, believe the best in them.  The sun is big enough to shine on everyone.  Stop taking things personally, even if those things are delivered pretty personally:)  Fight for relationships, connection, understanding, and community.

Don't let anything come between them.

  Love always wins.